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My notes and thoughts from Biology 111, for Monday, September 15, 2008. The entire series can be found here.

The class started with a reminder that the next class period (Wednesday the 17th) would be our first exam.

Then there was a short review of Hydrocarbons generally, and carbohydrates specifically, just to get us back to the place where we had left off.

We picked up this lecture with our discussion of Lipids.

2. Lipids

Triglycerides —> Fats & Oils

Saturated Fat: glycerol on the left with three fatty acids

Glycerol + 3 Fatty Acids

When a glycerol molecule, C3H5(OH)3 (the vertical part on the left of the image), picks up three fatty acids (the long strings of C and H on the right), they combine to form a triglyceride.

Triglycerides are fats and oils. If the long fatty acid chains all remain straight, each carbon bonding with two Hydrogen atoms and its two neighbor Carbon atoms, the triglyceride can pack densely, and thus becomes a solid at room temperature. This is a saturated fat.

Unsaturated Oil: Glycerol on the left with three fatty acids. Note the kink in one fatty acid.

If one or more of the long fatty acids develops a “kink”, ie two Carbons double bond and dump a Hydrogen, the stack can not pack as densely, and thus becomes a liquid at room temperature. This is an unsaturated oil. If there is one kink, it’s a monounsaturated oil, and if more than one, it’s a polyunsaturated oil.

Ta-da. It was kind of cool to suddenly understand the difference between them after having heard the terms for so long in reference to food labels.

We can measure energy in units called calories.

Because of fat’s high percentage of hydrocarbons (all along those fatty acid chains), it has a high caloric content. For comparison, a gram of fat contains 9 calories, while a gram of carbohydrates contains 4 calories. Remember that those Hydrogen – Carbon bonds are high energy content because of the non-polar covalent bond.

I got my second essay back this morning in English Class. I missed one comma, but managed an A+. I’m pretty happy about that as I was concerned about length as well as flow. I didn’t think it flowed as well as it could have.

Mr. Beverage disagreed, apparently.

When I showed him the title, he got a great big grin, and gave me specific permission to break the “No Slang” rule.

My notes and thoughts from Biology 111, for Wednesday, September 10, 2008. The entire series can be found here.

In the last lecture, we had left off with a discussion of pH and [H+]. We started this lecture by finishing up with pH.

Remember that pH is a negative log scale, so as [H+] goes up, pH goes down.

We came to definitions right off the bat.

Acid –> Any substance that increases [H+] of a solution. This is accomplished by donation of H+ ions (p+, since a Hydrogen without an e– is just a p+)

HCl —> H+ + Cl–

Hydrochloric acid will break down in solution into its constituent parts, thus directly increasing the [H+] and lowering the pH of the solution.

Base –> Any substance that decreases [H+] of a solution. This can be accomplished in one of two ways:

Donation of OH– to combine with H+ already in the solution

NaOH —> Na+ + OH– —> OH– + H+ —> H2O

Oven or drain cleaner, Sodium Hydroxide, will break down in solution into its constituent parts, one of which is a hydroxide ion. The hydroxide ion combines with H+ in the solution to make water, thus lowering [H+] and raising the pH of the solution.

Sucking up of H+

NH3 + H+ —> NH4+

Ammonia, NH3, will pick up an H+ and become NH4+, thus directly decreasing [H+], and raising the pH of the solution.

Then we moved on to Chapter 4: Carbon and the Molecular Diversity of Life

Sometimes there are things I want to address, but outside the context of UDoJ. I’ve been thinking about setting up a separate blog for that.

Here it is.

First of all, I was going to say that I’m the author of U Dream Of Janie and Kissing Corporal Kate. But the truth is the girls have taken on such a life of their own that I’m really just the secretary that takes dictation.

Alt Codes for typing Spanish characters:

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